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VICKSBURG 



VICKSBURG 



Bt 



J. FRANK HANLY 



I 



Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham 
New York: Eaton and Mains 






copthight, 1912, 
By Jennings and Gbaham 



CI.A30'.)652 



DEDICATION 

OF THE 

INDIANA MONUMENTS 

AT 

VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI 

December 29, 1908 

J. Frank Hanly 



VICKSBURG 



Vicksbur 



Mr, Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Indiana - Vicksburg Monument 
Commission: 

TO you this is no new stage. 
Its remotest confines were 
once familiar. You looked 
upon it, front and rear. 
You stood before its footlights. You 
knew its comedy — its tragedy. You 
had honorable and distinguished cast 
in the great drama that gave it fame 
in every land beneath the sun and 
place in the country's every annal — 
a drama real as human life in tensest 
mood — in which every character was 
a hero, every actor a patriot, and 
9 



Vicksbu r 



every word a deed — a drama, the 
memory of which is enduring, fade- 
less, and the scenes of which take 
form and color even now and rise 
before you vivid as a living picture. 
How clear the outline is: 

Time: The Nation's natal day, 
forty-five years ago. 

Place: This historic field; yon 
majestic river; that heroic city there 
— a beleaguered fortress, girdled with 
these hills. 

Scene: The river's broad expanse; 
Admiral Porter's fleet — ^grim engines 
of war, with giant guns and floating 
batteries, facing deep-mouthed and 
frowning cannon on terraced heights; 
the intrepid Army of the Tennessee, 
with camp and equipage, occupying 
10 



V i c k s b u r 



a line of investment twelve miles in 
length, with sap and mine, battery 
and rifle pit, marking a progress that 
would not be stayed, fronting a 
system of detached works, redans, 
lunets, and redoubts on every height 
or commanding point, with raised 
field works connected with rifle pits, 
numerous gullies and ravines, na- 
ture's defenses, impassable to troops ; 
all in all more impregnable than 
Sevastopol; with here and there en- 
sanguined areas where brave men 
met death in wild, mad charge 
against redoubt and bastion; or fell, 
in the delirium of frenzied struggle, 
on parapets, where torn and ragged 
battle flags borne by valorous arms, 
leaped and fluttered for a moment 
11 



Vicksbur 



amid cannon's smoke and muskets' 
glare, only to fall from nerveless 
hands, lost in the chagrin and grief 
of repulse, crushing and disastrous. 
Denouement : Fortifications sapped 
and mined! A city wrecked, sub- 
dued by want! An army in capitu- 
lation! A mighty host, surrendered! 
Flags furled! Arms stacked! One 
hundred and seventy-two captured 
cannon ! Sixty thousand rifles taken ! 
Twenty-nine thousand four hundred 
and ninety-one men prisoners of 
war — hungry, emaciated, broken, de- 
jected men, worn by sleepless vigil, 
the ordeal of war, the alarm of siege 
— men who suffered and endured, 
but would not yield till dire distress 
compelled — men whose gallant valor 
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Vicksbur 



challenges admiration and respect, 
and gives them equal claim to fame 
with their invincible captors, whose 
iron grip and ever-tightening hold 
they could not break! Victory com- 
plete and splendid! And over all — 
river, field, and city — where crash 
of musketry, roar of cannon, scream 
of shell, and all the tumultuous din 
of war had reigned — the hush and 
awe of silence, unbroken by cheer 
or shout or cry of exultation! 

Result: The fall of Port Hudson, 
an impregnable fortress, two hundred 
and fifty miles below; the disen- 
thrallment of the Mississippi — un- 
vexed by war, its waters free to seek 
the sea in peace; the bisecting of the 
Confederacy — cut in two — severed 
13 



V i c k s b u r 



completely — its doom decreed — its 
fate forever sealed — all thereafter 
dying in its defense going hopeless 
and in vain to sacrificial altars; the 
establishment of the Union's indis- 
solubility — its power made manifest 
East and West — faith in its ultimate 
triumph, though the pathway led 
through toil and blood, became as- 
sured — the Nation saw the end, dis- 
tant but sure — it found itself and it 
found a man, and that man had 
found himself, and had found others, 
too — Sherman, McPherson, Logan, 
Hovey, Osterhaus, McGinnis — a 
quiet, silent man, of grim determi- 
nation, who ''looked upon side move- 
ments as a waste of time" — a man 
of immovable purpose, who went 
14 



V i c k s b u r 



to his object unswerving as a bullet 
— a man of sublime courage, who 
wanted "on the same side of the 
river with the enemy" — a man of 
calm confidence, who relied upon 
himself and the disciplined, hardy 
men who followed him, who, under 
him, knew no defeat and who were 
unwilling to learn what it was — a 
man who knew the trade of war, its 
science and its rules, but who dared 
ignore its long-accepted axioms when 
occasion required; who, when he 
could not protect his communica- 
tions with his base without delay and 
the diminution of his force, could 
cut loose from all communications 
and have no base, though moving in 
the heart of the enemy's country — 
15 



Vicksbur 



a man of daring brilliancy, who 
could fight in detail a force superior 
in the aggregate to his own and 
defeat in turn its scattered fragments 
before they could consolidate — who 
had no rear, whose every side was 
front — who knew that "time was 
worth more than re-enforcements," 
and that delay only gave "the enemy 
time to re-enforce and fortify" — 
whose strategy, celerity, and rapidity 
of movement threw confusion into 
the councils of opposing generals, 
in a land strange to him and filled 
with his enemies — a land with which 
they were familiar and where every 
denizen was an ally — a man who 
could keep two governments guess- 
ing for weeks both as to his purpose 
16 



Vicksburg 

and his whereabouts — who could 
refuse to obey an order that had 
been so long in transmission as to 
be obsolete when it reached him, and 
ride away to victory and to fame — 
whose blows fell so thick and hard 
and fast that his foe had neither 
time nor rest nor food nor sleep — 
a man who was gentle and con- 
siderate enough when his foes sur- 
rendered to forbid his men to cheer 
lest they should wound the sensi- 
bilities of their captives — who, in 
the hour of supreme and final tri- 
umph, could speak for peace and 
give back to his captured country- 
men their horses that crops might 
be put in and cultivated. 

Time, place, scene, denouement, 
17 



Vicksbur 



and result, taken together, and all 
in all, have no parallel in all the 
six thousand years of human his- 
tory. 

It was, therefore, inevitable and 
in accord with man's nobler self, 
that this spot — the place where the 
great drama was staged and played 
— should become hallowed ground 
to those who struggled here to re- 
tain or to possess it; that it should 
be held forever sacred by the Blue 
and the Gray — the victors and the 
vanquished — by the Blue because 
of what was won, by the Gray be- 
cause of what was lost — by both 
because of heroic effort and devoted 
sacrifice made and endured; because 
of the new national life begun, the 
18 



Vicksbur 



new birth of freedom had, through 
their spilled blood. 

Vicksburg was the most important 
point in the Confederacy and its 
retention the most essential thing 
to the defense of the Confederacy. 
After the safety of Washington, its 
capture was the first necessity of the 
Federal Government. It commanded 
the Mississippi River, and "the val- 
ley of the Mississippi is America." 
The control of this great central 
artery of the continent was neces- 
sary to the perpetuation of the Con- 
federacy and indispensable to the 
preservation of the Union. To lose 
it was death to the one. To gain 
it was life to the other. The cam- 
paign for its capture was, therefore, 
19 



Vicksbur 



the most important enterprise of 
the Civil War. Its importance was 
understood and appreciated by the 
authorities at both capitals, and no 
one in authority in either capital 
understood it more clearly or ap- 
preciated it more fully than the 
commanders of the two opposing 
armies — Grant and Pemberton. 
Both knew the stake and its value 
and both were conscious that the 
fight to possess it by the one and to 
retain it by the other would be 
waged to the last extremity. And 
each was resolved that the great 
issue should be with him. They 
commanded armies equally brave 
and well disciplined, efficiently offi- 
cered, and equally devoted to them 
20 



Vicksburi^ 



to 



and to the respective cause for which 
they fought. 

Strength of position, natural and 
artificial, was with Pemberton. His 
task was defensive — to hold what 
he had. Grant's was offensive — to 
possess what he did not have. But 
the initiative was with him, and to 
genius that itself is an advantage. 

Pemberton knew the ground — 
the scene of the campaign. Its 
every natural adaptation of advan- 
tage or defense was to him as a 
thing ingrained in his consciousness 
and every denizen of the country 
about him was the friend of his army 
and his cause. 

Grant was in a strange land, with- 
out accurate knowledge of its topog- 
21 



Vicksbur 



raphy or of its natural difficulties 
of approach or opportunities of de- 
fense, and concerning which such 
knowledge could be acquired only 
by the exercise of infinite patience, 
by unremitting toil, and constant 
investigation. Its inhabitants looked 
upon him as an invader come to 
despoil their country — to lay waste 
their homes. Among them all, his 
army had no friend, his cause no 
advocate. 

But, while position and natural 
advantage was with Pemberton, the 
ability to command armies, the 
genius of concentration, to decide 
quickly and accurately, to design 
with daring boldness and to execute 
with celerity and rapidity; the te- 
22 



V i c k s b u r 



nacity of purpose that, come what 
will, can not be bent or turned aside, 
and the grim determination that 
rises in some men — God's chosen 
few — supreme above every let or 
hindrance — were with Grant. And 
it was this ability to command, 
more than all other things, that 
finally enabled him to wrest the 
great prize from the hands of Pem- 
berton and the Confederacy, and 
give it into the keeping of the 
Union. 

The campaign was Grant's — his 
alone — in conception and in execu- 
tion, from the beginning to the end. 
Its details his government did not 
know. For a time even its immediate 
object was unknown in Washington. 
23 



Vicksbur 



Its design was without successful 
military precedent. His most trusted 
general was opposed to it. But 
Grant saw and understood. The 
day he crossed his army at Bruins- 
burg he was "born again." He 
caught a vision that inspired him. 
He was transformed. There came to 
him a confidence that thenceforth 
was never shaken — a faith in which 
there was no flaw. Less than two 
years before he had doubtfully asked 
himself whether he could hope ever 
to command a division, and if so, 
whether he could command it suc- 
cessfully. Now he knew he could 
command an army; that he could 
plan campaigns, and that he could 
execute them with high skill and 



Vicksbur 



matchless vigor. He had found 
himself. 

General Banks, with a substantial 
force, was at Port Hudson, two hun- 
dred and fifty miles down the river. 
The two armies were expected by 
the authorities at Washington to 
co-operate with each other in an 
attack upon Pittsburg or Port Hud- 
son. Grant had heard from Banks 
that he could not come to him at 
Grand Gulf for weeks. Instantly 
his purpose crystallized. His resolve 
was made. He would not go to 
Banks at Port Hudson nor would 
he wait for him at Grand Gulf. 
Waiting meant delay. Delay meant 
strengthened fortifications and a re- 
enforced enemy. He would move 
25 



Vicksbur 



independently of Banks. His army 
was inferior in numbers to the ag- 
gregate forces of the enemy, but 
he would invade Mississippi, fight 
and defeat whatever force he found 
east of Vicksburg, and invest that 
city from the rear. And he would 
not wait a day. He would move 
at once. He would go now — go 
swiftly to Jackson, destroy or drive 
away any force in that direction, 
and then turn upon Pemberton and 
drive him into Vicksburg. He would 
keep his own army a compact force 
— "round as a cannon ball," and 
he would fight and defeat the en- 
emy in detail before his forces could 
be concentrated. The concept was 
worthy of Napoleon in his best 
26 



V i c k s b u r 



moments. It was remarkably bril- 
liant, audaciously daring. It was 
the turning point in Grant's career 
— a momentous hour, big with des- 
tiny for him, his army, and his 
country. In its chalice was Vicks- 
burg — Chattanooga — Spottsylvania 
— Appomattox — national solidar- 
ity — and deathless personal fame. 
The decision was made without ex- 
citement, without a tremor of the 
pulse, in the calmness of conscious 
power. John Hay fancifully com- 
pares his action at this time "to 
that of the wild bee in the Western 
woods, who, rising to the clear air, 
flies for a moment in a circle, and 
then darts with the speed of a rifle 
bullet to its destination." 
27 



Vicksbur 



A long-established and universally 
accepted axiom of war — one that 
ought in no case to be violated — 
required any great body of troops 
moving against an enemy to go for- 
ward only from an established base 
of supplies, which, together with 
the communications thereto, should 
be carefully covered and guarded 
as the one thing upon which the 
life of the movement depended. 
The idea of supporting a moving 
column in the enemy's country from 
the country itself was regarded as 
impractical and perilous, if not ac- 
tually impossible. The movement 
he had determined upon would un- 
cover his base and imperil his com- 
munications. Defeat meant irre- 
28 



Vicksburg 

mediable failure and disgrace. The 
hazard seemed so great, and the 
proposal so contrary to all the ac- 
cepted maxims of war and military 
precedents, that Sherman, seeing the 
danger, urged Grant "to stop all 
troops till the army is partially sup- 
plied with wagons, and then act as 
quickly as possible, for this road 
will be jammed as sure as life." 

Grant knew the difficulty and the 
peril, but he was not afraid. He 
knew the military and the political 
need of the country. He knew his 
officers. He knew the army he com- 
manded. And, knowing all, he as- 
sumed the responsibility and took 
the hazard; cut loose from his base, 
severed his communications, went 
29 



Vicksbur 



where there was no way, and left 
a path that will shine while history 
lasts. 

Having decided his course, he tele- 
graphed the government at Wash- 
ington: "I shall not bring my troops 
into this place (Grand Gulf), but 
immediately follow the enemy, and 
if all promises as favorably as it 
does now, not stop until Vicksburg 
is in our possession." Here was the 
first and the only intimation of his 
purpose given the government. The 
execution of his purpose was im- 
mediately begun and pressed with 
personal energy, attention, and vigor 
without parallel in the life of a com- 
manding general of an army. Sher- 
man, who of all men had the best 
30 



Vicksburg 

opportunity to know and was best 
qualified to weigh the extent and 
character of his work, declares: "No 
commanding general of an army ever 
gave more of his personal attention 
to detail, or wrote so many of his 
own orders, reports, or letters. I 
still retain many of his letters and 
notes in his own handwriting, pre- 
scribing the route of march of di- 
visions and detachments, specifying 
the amount of food and tools to be 
carried along." 

Washburn wrote: "On this whole 
march of five days he has had neither 
a horse nor an orderly or servant, a 
blanket or overcoat, or clean shirt 
or even a sword. His entire bag- 
gage consists of a tooth brush." 
31 



Vicksbur 



John Hay says of him: "All his 
faculties seemed sharpened by the 
emergency. There was nothing too 
large for him to grasp; nothing small 
enough for him to overlook." He 
gave "direction to generals, sea- 
captains, quartermasters, commis- 
saries, for every incident of the open- 
ing of the campaign, then mounted 
his horse and rode to his troops." 
And then, for three weeks, in quick 
and dazzling succession, came stag- 
gering, stunning blows, one after 
the other — Raymond — Jackson — 
Champion's Hill — The Big Black 
— until he stood with his army at 
the very gates of Vicksburg! 

The government, hearing that he 
had left Grand Gulf for the interior 
32 



Vicksburg 

of Mississippi without supplies or 
provision for communication with 
his base, telegraphed him in concern 
and alarm to turn back and join 
Banks at Port Hudson. The de- 
spatch reached him days after at the 
Big Black Bridge, while the battle 
there was in progress. The message 
was handed him. He read it; said 
it came too late, that Halleck would 
not give it now if he knew his posi- 
tion. As he spoke the cheering of 
his soldiers could be heard. Looking 
up he saw Lawler, in his shirt 
sleeves, leading a charge upon the 
enemy, in sight of the messenger 
who bore the despatch. Wheeling 
his horse, he rode away to victory 
and to Vicksburg, leaving the officer 
33 



Vicksburg 

to ruminate as long as he liked upon 
the obsolete message he had brought. 

I have spoken much of Grant. 
There is reason that I should. No 
campaign of the war is so insolubly 
linked with the personality of the 
commanding general as the Vicks- 
burg campaign. 

For three weeks he was the Army 
of the Tennessee. He dominated it 
absolutely. His personality, with 
its vigor and its action, was in all, 
through all, over all. His corps and 
divisions were commanded by great 
men, but, with a single exception, 
they were loyal and devoted and 
reflected his will, and sought the 
achievement of his purpose in every 
act and movement. During these 

H 



V i c k s b u r 



days Sherman was his right arm, 
McPherson his left, and neither ever 
failed him. The whole army, officers 
and men, caught his spirit and shared 
his indomitable purpose. Nothing 
could daunt it or turn it aside. 
There was no service it did not per- 
form, no need it did not meet. It 
had capacity for everything. Grant 
justly said: "There is nothing which 
men are called upon to do, mechan- 
ical or professional, that accomplished 
adepts can not be found for the duty 
required in almost every regiment. 
Volunteers can be found in the ranks 
and among the commanding officers 
to meet any call." Every obstacle 
was overcome; every difficulty sur- 
mounted. When bridges were 
S5 



Vicksburg 

burned, new ones were built in a 
night, or the streams forded. In 
every event the light of the morning 
found his soldiers on the same side 
of the river with the enemy. If 
rains descended and floods came, 
they marched on though the roads 
were afloat with water. They fought 
and marched, endured and toiled, 
but they did not complain or even 
murmur. They, as well as their 
officers, understood the value of the 
stake for which they struggled. 
They knew they were marching and 
fighting and toiling under the eye of 
a great commander, one who knew 
where he was going and how to go; 
that there was no hardship which he 
did not share, no task from which 
36 



Vicksburg 

he shrunk. Weary from much 
inarching, they marched on; worn 
from frequent fighting, they fought 
on; all but exhausted from incessant 
toil, they toiled on, in a hot climate, 
exposed to all sorts of weather, 
through trying and terrible ordeals, 
watching by night and by day, until 
they stood in front of the rifle pits 
and of the batteries of the city, and 
even here they would not be content 
until they were led in assault upon 
the enemy's works and had stood 
upon their parapets in a vain but 
glorious struggle for their possession. 
What a story it is! How it stirs 
the blood! How it inspires to love 
of country! How it impels to high 
endeavor! And what a valorous foe 
37 



Vicksbur 



they met! They were, and are, 
thank God, our countrymen — be- 
siegers and besieged. In their veins 
flowed kindred blood — blood that 
leaps and burns in ours to-day» 
They differed. Differed until at 
last the parliament of debate was 
closed, and then, like men, they 
fought their differences out, in open 
war — on the field of battle — sealing 
the settlement with their blood and 
giving the world a new concept of 
human valor. 

There were wounds. There was 
suffering. There was heartache. 
There were asperities. There was 
death. There was bereavement. 
These were inevitable. But there 
was a nobility about it all, that, 
38 



Vicksburg 

seen through the intervening years, 
silences discord, softens hate, and 
makes forgiveness easy. To-day we 
laugh and weep together. Wounds 
are healed; asperities are forgotten; 
the past is remembered without bit- 
terness; glory hovers like a benedic- 
tion over this immortal field and 
guards with solemn round the biv- 
ouac of all the dead, giving no heed 
to the garb they wore. Their great- 
ness is the legacy of all — the heritage 
of the Nation. Reconciliation has 
come with influences soft and holy. 
The birds build nests in yonder can- 
non. The songs of school children 
fill the air. 

Indiana has come to Mississippi 
to dedicate monuments erected by 
39 



Vicksbur 



her to the memory of her soldiers, 
Uving and dead, who struggled here; 
but she comes with malice toward 
none, with love for all. With you, 
sir, the Governor of this Common- 
wealth, and with your people she 
would pour her tribute of tears upon 
these mounds where sleep sixteen 
thousand of our uncommon common 
dead. Her troops were here with 
Grant. One of her regiments, the 
6th, sought out the way for the 
army beyond the river yonder. They 
were the ''entering wedge." They 
were in every battle. At Cham- 
pion's Hill, Hovey's division bore for 
hours the battle's brunt. Fighting 
under the eye of the great general 
himself, they captured a battery, 
40 



V i c k s b u r 



lost it, and recaptured it, and at 
night slept upon the field wet with 
their blood. 

This gray - haired general here 
(General McGinnis) was with them. 
He is a member of the commission 
that erected these granite tributes, 
and has in charge these ceremonies. 
He has come to lend the benediction 
of his presence to this occasion, and 
to look again upon the ground where 
so many dramatic and tragic scenes 
were enacted — scenes in which he 
had honorable share — scenes that 
were burned into the very fiber of 
his young manhood's memory, and 
which he would not forget if he 
could. His days have been long 
lengthened. We are glad and grate- 
41 



Vicksburg 

ful that he is here. His associates 
on the commission were here; and 
so were these battle-scarred veterans 
standing here round about you. 
They give character and purpose to 
this occasion and a benediction to 
this service. Through them and 
their comrades, and the great Army 
in Gray with whom they contended, 
both we and you are beginning to 
understand the message and the 
meaning of the war. They have 
taught us charity and forgiveness. 
We are coming "to know one an- 
other better, to love one another 
more." Here upon these hills and 
heights was lighted the torch of a 
national life, that to-day is blessing, 
enlightening, and enriching the peo- 
42 



Vicksburg 

pies of the earth. Our prayer — a 
prayer in which we are sure your 
hearts are joined with ours — is, that 
this mighty Nation, grown great 
and powerful, may know war no 
more, forever; that it may walk 
uprightly, deal justly with its own 
people and with all nations; that 
its purpose may be hallowed, its 
deeds ennobled, its glory sanctified, 
by the memories of the crucible 
through which it came, and that 
in the future if war must come, its 
sword may be drawn only in Free- 
dom's cause, and that its soldiery 
in such case may acquit themselves 
as nobly as did those who struggled 
here. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of 
43 



Vicksburg 

the Commission, in the name of the 
State of Indiana and on her behalf, 
I accept these splendid monuments 
and these markers you have erected 
and which you have so eloquently 
tendered me, and in the name of 
the State and on behalf of her people. 
Captain Rigby, I now present them 
to you, as the representative of the 
National Government, and give them 
through you into its keeping, to be 
held and kept forever as a sacred 
trust — a reminder to the countless 
thousands that in the gathering years 
may look upon them, of the share 
Indiana had in the great campaign 
that ended here July 4, 1863. 



44 



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